Monthly Archives: January 2012

As reported by Andrew Ross Sorkin from DealBook, usually, it is the banks that are fighting efforts to impose new regulations on the industry. Now, it is foreign governments fighting against bank regulations in the United States.

In the halls of last week’s annual meeting of the World Economic Forum here, Wall Street’s top bankers found a curious ally in their battle to end — or perhaps water down — the Volcker Rule, that part of last year’s Dodd-Frank financial regulation law that says that banks are not allowed to participate in “proprietary trading.” Translation: Banks can’t make risky bets with their own money. The idea, rooted in ending the too-big-to-fail phenomenon, is to separate the risky casino element of Wall Street from the utility role of helping finance the economy.

Yet finance ministers from around the world lined up to whisper in the ear of Timothy Geithner, the Treasury secretary, who made the rounds in Davos on Thursday and Friday, about a specific element of the Volcker Rule that has them apoplectic: The rule says that United States banks — and possibly certain foreign banks that do business in America — would be restricted in trading foreign government bonds. Yet the rule, conveniently, provides an exemption for United States government securities. Every other country is out of luck.

As reported by the Washington Post, French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said on Monday that the country is slashing its forecast for economic growth this year from 1 percent to 0.5 percent.

The move enables the government to “take into account the deteriorating economic environment” before revising the budget with a last-minute package of measures that are to go before the Cabinet next week, Fillon said.

As reported by the salt lake tribune, The Internal Revenue Service on Monday launched its annual outreach campaign aimed at helping the millions of Americans who earned $49,078 or less take advantage of the Earned Income Tax Credit.

The agency also is spreading the word about free preparation assistance.

Although an estimated four out of five eligible workers and families are eligible for the EITC, one in five still miss out either because they don’t claim it or don’t file a tax return at all, according to the IRS.Workers who earned $49,078 or less from wages, self-employment or farm income last year could receive larger refunds if they quality for the credit. That could mean up to $464 in ETIC for those without children and a maximum credit of up to $5,751 for those with three or more qualifying children, the IRS said.

Unlike most deductions and credits, the EITC is refundable. In other words, those who are eligible may get a refund from the IRS even if they owe no tax.

People can find out if they qualify by visiting IRS.gov and answering a few questions using the EITC Assistant. In tax year 2010, almost 26.8 million eligible workers and families received more than $59.5 billion in EITC. The average EITC per individual last year was $2,200.

As reported by bloomberg, Morgan Stanley (MS), Citigroup Inc. (C) and Credit Suisse Group AG (CSGN) made some of the year’s biggest cuts in compensation for investment bankers, averaging as much as 30 percent, as Wall Street firms grappled with lower revenue. A table summarizing changes in compensation appears below.

Morgan Stanley, owner of the world’s largest brokerage, will also cap cash awards and defer more payouts, people with knowledge of the plans have said, while Zurich-based Credit Suisse (CS), Switzerland’s second-largest bank, plans to give a portion of senior employees’ bonuses in bonds backed by derivatives. New York-based Citigroup may cut some bonuses in the securities and banking unit as much as 70 percent.

Wall Street firms are curbing pay and changing formulas to limit expenses, with some giving more stock and less cash. Revenue shrank last year as mergers and trading slowed, turning financial stocks into 2011’s worst performers in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. Recipients may find they do better with shares instead of cash, according to Paul Sorbera, president of Wall Street executive search firm Alliance Consulting.

Hedge funds increased wagers on rising commodity prices to the most in two months and the rally in raw materials accelerated as the Federal Reserve pledged to keep borrowing costs low for three more years.

Money managers raised combined bullish positions across 18 U.S. futures and options by 13 percent to 742,902 contracts in the week ended Jan. 24, Commodity Futures Trading Commission data show. The so-called net-long position in copper jumped 53 percent to the highest since August and in silver by 22 percent to the most since September. Speculators also expanded bullish bets in sugar, soybeans, cotton, gold, gasoline and crude oil.

Fed policy makers said Jan. 25 they will keep their target interest rate for overnight loans between banks near zero at least until late 2014 and didn’t rule out buying more bonds. The Fed first pushed rates to a record low in December 2008 and has since purchased $2.3 trillion of debt in two rounds of so-called quantitative easing that ended in June 2011. During that period, commodities rose more than 80 percent. The Standard & Poor’s GSCI Spot Index of 24 raw materials jumped 2.2 percent last week, after a 0.1 percent gain a week earlier, as the dollar depreciated to a seven-week low.

Samsung Electronics Co. jumped to a record in Seoul trading after surging smartphone sales boosted profit and helped Asia’s largest consumer-electronics company keep pace with Apple Inc.

Fourth-quarter net income rose 17 percent to 4 trillion won ($3.6 billion), from 3.42 trillion won a year earlier, the Suwon, South Korea-based company said in a statement today. The average of 28 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg was 3.99 trillion won. Sales rose 13 percent to 47.3 trillion won, in line with a preliminary estimate announced Jan. 6.

Samsung shipped more smartphones last year than Apple did iPhones, with the popularity of its Galaxy models helping the Korean company sell a record 300 million handsets. Samsung, whose parent group plans a record investment this year, is introducing more phones and tablet computers to cushion slumping profits at its liquid-crystal display business amid a global economic slowdown.

Oil giant BP has lost its attempt to shift over $15 billion of costs related to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill onto contractor Transocean, increasing the possibility BP may have to foot the entire $42 billion clean up bill.

A U.S. federal judge on Thursday said BP must uphold a clause in its contract with Transocean Ltd that would shield the Swiss-based driller from compensatory damage claims related to the 2010 disaster.

That means London-based BP may have to shoulder alone compensation claims brought by the likes of fishermen and hoteliers whose livelihoods were affected by largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

However, U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier left open the possibility that Transocean might still have to pay all or part of any punitive damages and civil penalties imposed by the U.S. government under the federal Clean Water Act.